Well, that didn’t turn out like I had planned.
There’s lots of different ways to define a failed training run. Maybe you didn’t run as fast as you wanted. Or your effort wasn’t high enough. You could have missed your vert target for the activity. Or possibly you went too hard on an easy day.
For me, it’s all about the distance covered. I’ve gotten to the point where my training runs top out at 20 miles. Considering that I’ve been consistently running for almost 10 years with a long race history, the likelihood of me not finishing my planned distance is pretty low. That’s not to say all runs are at what I feel are good paces. Sometimes I’m just slower than normal. But as long as I hit my planned mileage (even if it’s by 0.01 miles), then it goes into my books as a win.
So a failed run is blue moon rare for me. Basically, it almost takes an act of God for me not to finish a training run. And I think that’s what happened Friday.
First of all, it was 60 degrees at 5am in Pennsylvania in late February. I should have known something weird was in the offing. I stepped out my door for 8 road miles in a long sleeve t-shirt and shorts. A bit over-dressed, but I prefer to sweat than be even a little chilled. There was a very light rain; more a mist than rain. As the first mile progressed, the rain got harder and harder. And then colder and colder. Before I knew it, I was in a freezing downpour and actually started to shiver a little.
OK, that was enough for me. I turned around after barely a mile and headed for home.
After a couple minutes, the rain let up. I wasn’t quite comfortable, but I felt much, much better. I added a quick detour but basically went straight back to my house. I ended up 5.22 miles short of my plan for the day. So I didn’t just come up a little light on my miles. I was ridiculously short.
I gave a brief thought to changing clothes and heading back out better dressed. I also thought about adding a double run in the evening to get me to 8 miles on the day. I ended up doing neither. I decided to take the L and move on. You’re not going to win them all. And those 5 miles won’t really impact my fitness over the course of a full training block. Heck, the extra rest may even end up being beneficial for me as I had been hitting it relatively hard for the past couple weeks.
Some people will push through to develop mental toughness. In my personal experience, I’ve never thought it translated much from training runs to races. I’ve never been in a bad place during a race and remembered a specific training run were I succeeded in gutting out a tough run. It’s more a general feeling than anything specific. I’ve done a bunch of hard, long runs over the years. Some in races, some not. You could say I have a decent amount of experience by now with hard runs.
And maybe that’s my takeaway. There’s a point in training where hard becomes too hard. Or too dangerous. Or maybe even just too unfun. It’s OK when you reach that point to turn around and go home.
Tomorrow is always an opportunity for a great run.